subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1

[Simon Morgan]

bainbridge[pts/0][16]:~% sudo dpkg --configure xbase-clients
Setting up xbase-clients (6.8.2-21) ...
xbase-clients postinst warning: /etc/X11/xkb/xkbcomp symbolic link points
   to wrong location /usr/bin/xkbcomp
Analyzing /etc/X11/xkb/xkbcomp:
drwxr-xr-x 101 root root 8192 2005-06-01 11:36 /etc
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 2005-06-01 11:35 /etc/X11
drwxr-xr-x 10 root root 4096 2005-06-01 11:35 /etc/X11/xkb
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 16 2005-06-01 11:34 /etc/X11/xkb/xkbcomp -> /usr/bin/xkbcomp
Analyzing /usr/bin/xkbcomp:
drwxr-xr-x 12 root root 4096 2005-05-17 14:24 /usr
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 28672 2005-06-01 11:35 /usr/bin
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 173752 2005-06-01 10:07 /usr/bin/xkbcomp
Searching for overlapping packages...
dpkg: error processing xbase-clients (--configure):
 subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 xbase-clients

[Simon Morgan (sjmorgan)]

Created an attachment (id=2578)
fix postinst path to xkbcomp

[David Giard (swe3tdave-deactivatedaccount)]

i experieced the same problem, and came up with the same solution.. i dont know
what to do in this case...(i'm still new at this)

[Sami Haahtinen (ressu)]

I'm running in to this too. So far it appears that the problem is at the point
where $_possible_culprits are grepped for the argument "/etc/X11/xkb/xkbcomp"
for $_smoking_guns.

grep return exit code 123, as for what that means.. i'm still looking.

[Sami Haahtinen (ressu)]

Ah, that exit code 123 was apparently from xargs, not grep.

Anyways, the problem would be the grep clause, grep -l returns false when it
doesn't find anything. that will kill the postinst. Adding || true to the end of
the grep invokation fixes that problem. I'm not attaching patch as i'm not
exactly certain that it is the sane thing to do, as i don't get the general idea
behind the whole postinst.

Also, after adding the "|| true", postinst fails with:
xbase-clients postinst error: bad symbolic links on system

I'm happy to give more information if needed.

[Daniel Stone (daniels)]

Right. The patch posted is correct.

[Baszur (correobasuraqui)]

To what file I must apply the patch for this bug? shell-lib.sh ?

[Simon Morgan (sjmorgan)]

If you just want to fix an already installed binary package then just manually
edit /var/lib/dpkg/info/xserver-xorg.postinst.

[Daniel Stone (daniels)]

Fixed ages ago.